No Hard Drive Bay On PStwo 94
Thanks to Gamespot for the notification. Sony has confirmed that the PStwo will not feature a hard drive bay. "...consumers who want and use the hard disc drive are typically the more 'hard core' gamers, ... we feel that a majority of those HDD interested consumers already have their PlayStation 2 units."
PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:2)
So, while the HDD is late to the game and will probably make little impact, it is being developed for...
Re:PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PA's Tycho mentioned this... (Score:1)
Fewer HDD Suportting Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone know any other games that can make use of the HDD? Also what Japanese releases would use the HDD that have had the feature removed for US release? I would guess that FF:X did support it. After using HDLoader to copy the game to my drive, I found that the shattering screen that marks the start of combat actaully displays over the loaded battle area instead of a black screen if it can get the data into memory fast enough.
Total waste of time (Score:2)
Frankly I'd be surprised if any developers were considering supporting it in more than a token sense even before this announcement. There are so few out there and the perceived benefit to customers is so low you'd never recoup the extra cost of testing, let alone development.
Sony needed to release the thing in 2002 and to ship the SCPH-5000x (the 2nd-rev PS2 with the built-in IR/DVD remote) with the hard drive pre-installed if they wanted anyone to pay attention to it. T
Re:Total waste of time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Total waste of time (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft are hurting like hell right now because they have to pay that cost on every Xbox they sell and Sony doesn't. This is why Sony came up with that PSX console/PVR hybrid - they could offer a lot more functionality, charge much more for it and more than cover the extra manufacturing cost.
The 'sufficient' amount of RAM for a console is a function of many things. Sustained read speed from the optical disc, system bus bandwidth, processing power of the CPU and GPU. No point filling memory with data you can't express on-screen or that can't contribute to your simulation of the world. People also don't want to wait 2 minutes for memory to fill from the disc. If all of the other things could scale up, RAM would too - but then the system would be even more expensive.
As for the caching, Xbox already provides scratch space for games - 3 sets allocated on an LRU basis.
Re:Total waste of time (Score:1)
MS - "hurting like hell"? Dude, they're sitting on 50 billion+. They still haven't gone through the couple of billion that they originally allocated for the Xbox. They are not "hurting" by any stretch of the imagination.
Re:Total waste of time (Score:2)
Even a company with as much cash as Microsoft doesn't keep throwing money down a b
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:1)
Also, I may be mistaken, but I believe the upcoming Front Mission Online may utilize the hard drive. I wouldn't be surprised if the game never saw North America though, considering the lack of HD support on the PSTwo.
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:2)
It looks like Square Enix is building support for Front Mission Online into the PlayOnline loader that resides on the HDD so I wouldn't guess that is uses if not requires the HDD. But as you said, it may not see a North America release, but not because of the lack of support on the PStwo, but just because of the lack of installed drives period.
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:1)
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:2)
Re:Fewer HDD Supporting Games (Score:2)
To start with, stores may very well mark the old units down (Target is a prime example of one that does this). You may be able to get the PS2 w/ Network Adaptor (I hate that spelling, but it's on the package as such) for closer to $120 or so. Also, I recently saw that the FFXI package at Best Buy was around $88 now (not a sale price, from what I could see). Plus you should be able to find a vertical stand for the unit on eBay for relatively cheap and, if the pictures at engadget.com a
Re:Fewer HDD Suportting Games (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fewer HDD Suportting Games (Score:2)
Had it been where gamers discovered a lot of their collection supported HD installation after they got the HD, I think things would be quite different now.
Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1)
Just substitute ROB the Robot with his gyromite spinner, and you're on the right track.
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1)
2) And the ethernet adapter senses which type of network you are on. There is no such thing as programming a game to use it only in 10 mode.
3) It is not a GBA emulator. That piece of hardware the GC sits on, is an actual GBA that pipes its video and sound through the GC.
So, not all of the slots on the GC are used.
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1)
The 64DD had a limited release in Japan only, several years later than it had originally been due.
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2)
Bit late though, isn't it?
Dave
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2)
Of course, unless you worked at GameStop you should have been smart enough to see that it would flop. As much as geeks love LAN parties, the number of people who are going to arrange to have two TVs, two PS2s, and two copies of a game in the room are fairly slim which combined with the large amount of developement work that goes into creating games which take advantage of the link, direct link not being a marketing point, and the eclipse from online pla
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:2)
As for
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (NES' bottom) (Score:2)
Speaking of never-used ports... My excellent 8-bit NES had a knock-out panel on the bottom. I remember opening the unit to find a wide (parallel?) port inside the machine. "Wow!" I was thinking as a 13 y/o "I found a top secret upgrade port! I wonder how Nintendo plans to use this hidden feature!? Ohhh I can't wait..."
Needless to say, I'm still waiting. That (along with the repeated cancellations of bringing back a REAL Knight Rider TV series) is why I don't give a damn about ANY add-on product vapor-ware
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah yeah yeah. (Score:1)
Flash (Score:2)
Re:Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flash (Score:1)
Re:Flash (Score:2)
well doh, if you'd use it as a hd replacement, it would need to be hd sized!
most(like every game out there minus 1 or 2) current games save to that little flash cartridge("memory card") though on a ps2.
Re:Flash (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm assuming that each console has a reasonable amount of flash memory, say 512 MB from looking at current prices. That's enough for tons of saved games, patches and added features. The game disk has 9 GB of space, assuming dual-layer DVD. If that isn't enough, the game could be split onto two DVDs. How many of my customers have Internet connections, have their console connected to the Internet, and have a broadban
Re:Flash (Score:2)
Second generation games and onward we start to see a slow creep towards worse and worse loading times as the data increases but the disc data throughput
Re:Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flash (Score:2)
Well, in Sony's case, few would actually get that far.
Re:Flash (Score:2)
I think the GameBoy Advance uses flash, but otherwise it's CD consoles that use flash, noteably the PlayStation. Not sure what the Sega Mega CD, Saturn (external cartridges, I know they use battery RAM for external memory) and the N64 use though.
Re:Flash (Score:2)
Re:Flash (Score:2)
Re:Flash (Score:1)
Re:Flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if they were announcing the PS3 doesn't have a drive, then you might have a point.
external (Score:1)
Also I think ps2 mod chips already let you "make use" of external usb storage.
Re:external (Score:2)
Most of the code based cheat devices (Action Replay, Code Breaker, Game Shark), let you copy save games to USB devices (or copy codes/saves from their website to load onto the PS2).
Reliability Issues as Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
Dave
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reliability Issues as Well (Score:2)
If you want to play FF11, you'll pretty much need a Sony HD.
HDLoad
Doom and gloom (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Doom and gloom (Score:2)
Bad Idea (Score:2)
I think they should be petitioned about this !
Nick..
Re:Bad Idea (Score:1)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Informative)
Suggesting they spend another USD100 on a laptop hard drive in each of the remaining 10 million PS2's they're going to sell is a bit like suggesting they just kinda randomly give away a billion dollars for no apparent reason. As we all know there's only one company who'd consider doing something like that in order to win a games console dick war - and even they are starting to have second thoughts.
Dave
Not a Bad Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Fine, drop the HD... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt it's the technology, more so how the save/recall API for memcard stuff is written. I suspect most of the current more-than-8Meg cards out there that are !Sony have hardware hacks that avoid issues many older games have with writing to 8megs, though there's still a few.
Of course, I'd have no problem paying $50-$70 for a 128M storage card for the PS2/two. But to continue to act like 8megs is enough, particularly when most current games have no idea about the 2nd memcard slot, is silly.
Re:Fine, drop the HD... (Score:2)
$300 - Console
$30 additional controller
$30 Component video output cable (or Svideo, whatever floats your boat)
$60 memory card?
Include tax and you're paying almost $450 dollars and you don't even have a game to get you started! If cheap computer companies can sell $500 computers with 2Ghz chips, 256 megabytes of RAM, a CDRW, and a 60 GB harddrive, sony should be able to provide decently priced hardware as well.
How do you pronounce PStwo? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do you pronounce PStwo? (Score:2)
Names like mini-PS2, tray loading PS2, networked PS2 or ickle-PS2-chan would all be more appropiate.
Re:How do you pronounce PStwo? (Score:1)
Re:How do you pronounce PStwo? (Score:1)
Obvious solution. (Score:1)
Re:Obvious solution. (Score:4, Informative)
In Japan they did release (or at least show) an external hard drive at one point, as eary PS2 models didn't have the hard drive bay, but they still plugged into the back of the console.
Re:Obvious solution. (Score:1)
B) The current PS2 doesn't support external drives, what makes you assume the PSTwo will?
Face it, Sony is cutting their losses. The HD is essentially dead.
Hmmm.... (Score:2)
It comes with the ethernet built in, but they drop the HDD?
So I can play Madden, but not FFIX... Smooth
HD Loader (Score:5, Informative)
I bought HD Loader and found many legitimate uses for it. I have young children and using HD Loader I copied all of my original games to the hard drive so they do not have to handle the game disks and take the chance of scratching them. I just leave the HD Loader disk in the tray so that everytime they boot they are presented with a menu of games to run. Load times have noticeably decreased. One of my kid's favorites had nearly a minute load time between levels. Running from the hard drive that was reduced to less than 10 seconds.
Re:HD Loader (Score:2)
There are more than a few games that won't install directly from the PS2 for one reason or another. Also, installing from the PS2 can be really slow. There's a single solution for both of these.
If you look around, there's some software you can download to let you install discs from your PC to the HD. A simple case of hooking the drive up to your PC for a bit and installing from there. Many games will still be incompatible, but I've found a few in my collection that just wouldn't
Re:HD Loader Wha? (Score:1)
This method of piracy is so popular that I none of my piracy savvy friends network has ever bothered to use it! Not to disagree with you that it exists, and seems pretty handy. It's just I sure hope Sony isn't shooting themselves in the foot to prevent what from my point of view is a form of piracy I've never seen anyone use. (They can already burn pirated CD-ROMS- and they hardly even care eno
It's All About The Benjamins (Score:3, Insightful)
The likely fact is just as it was said earlier, the consumers with interest in the HD already have it. They've milked it for all they can get, so continued support at this stage would cost more than what it is worth. Why? Because they had plans for the PStwo all along as a stop gap between now and the PS3 release. The PStwo gets the platform back in the news in time for XMas. They'll pick up some new sales and some repeat sales as either gifts, spares, or replacements. And best of all, for Sony, the PStwo hardware is probably going to sell at a profit for them. To make this possible they had to drop everything that would increase the cost of making the console, so bye bye HD.
This probably also means that those HD using goodies that were promised will not be coming, at least not to North America or Europe.
Re:It's All About The Benjamins (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mean to sound cold, but... (Score:2)
Had Sony not ditched the firewire ports on PS2 back with the previous revision, it seems that they m